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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323849">Welcome Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hijacking the Soft Wars AU [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon?, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Expanding on an AU that is already expanding exponentially, Friendship, Gen, The Author Regrets Nothing, never heard of her</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:16:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,274</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323849</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty or so years in the future Home has become a safe haven for Vode of all kinds. </p><p> </p><p>Set in the Soft Wars AU by Project0506</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hera Syndulla &amp; Jacen Syndulla, Jyn Erso &amp; Jacen Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus &amp; Jacen Syndulla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hijacking the Soft Wars AU [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>131</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Open Source Soft Wars</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Welcome Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/gifts">Project0506</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>We got ourselves a timeline Star Wars mashup ya'll</p><p>This will make a lot more sense if you've read the Soft Wars AU series, which, honestly if you haven't yet like...what are you doing?</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jacen Syndulla-Dume frowned across the platform, peering through the crowd of ships and sentients at a hovering egg-shaped object that was all on its own.It was the third Taungsday, so it could have been a piece of luggage or forgotten pet, but something about it tugged him forward.</p><p> </p><p>Up close the object hovered at about chest height on Jacen (he was a bit short for a ten year old but his mother <em>swore</em> he had at least two growth spurts coming) and the strange tugging feeling got stronger the closer he got.</p><p> </p><p>He found a small release button on the side and opened it. It was a carrier it turned out, but not for a pet...he didn’t think.</p><p> </p><p>The creature inside seemed sentient, if the child-like cooing noises were any indication. It was surrounded by a soft blanket and a low hum of contentment in the Force, and <em>light light light</em> that made Jacen want to smile without really knowing why. A tiny green head, huge pointed ears and black eyes stared up at him.</p><p> </p><p><em>A baby,</em> Jacen thought. Though he noticed in the Force the child felt much older, decades old even, he didn’t look any more developed than the Littles are when they're first decanted.</p><p> </p><p><em>Born, Jacen. Children are born. No one has been decanted on Home in decades,</em> his mother would say, sparkling, smiling eyes and tossing a green lekku over her shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I know Mom. But I like the sound of decanting better.</em>
</p><p> </p><p><em>Jacen, luv, I was in labor with you for thirty two hours, </em> <em>decanting sounds better to me too.</em> </p><p> </p><p>"Hey there," Jason reached out to move the blanket aside to get a better look at the huge black eyes that blinked slowly at him. A soft nudge against his mind in the Force, a vague sense of a question.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Is it safe here?</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jacen smiled, nodding and stroking the warm bald head lightly. “You’re safe here, youngling. No one will hurt you.” </p><p> </p><p>"Oh, thats not even fair." A dark haired girl suddenly popped up beside him and immediately reached in to pick up the child.</p><p> </p><p>"Jyn be careful!" Jacen hissed.</p><p> </p><p>"He's so freaking cute I wanna eat him!” Jyn exclaimed, ignoring Jacen’s protests and pullingthe child out to prop on herhip. "Is he with anyone?" She lifted her head to look around, the comings and goings of small ships whipping flyaway brown hair around her face. The main docking port was abuzz with activity, as it always was on Arrival day, but no one was projecting the frenetic hysterics of someone who's lost a youngling in the crowd.</p><p> </p><p>As soon as Jacen was old enough he’d started joining his parents for Welcoming. Home had ballooned in population over the decades. They provided a safe place for the lost and brothers in the galaxy, those without a family of their own, and Jacen felt privileged to have been raised here from birth. It was a young culture, but rich with a sense of pride and connection. Loyalty above all.</p><p> </p><p>Today Jacen’s parents had accompanied Jyn’s to the hospital to prepare for the imminent arrival of her little sister, so he and Jyn were participating in the Welcoming on their own for the first time.</p><p> </p><p>"I don’t think so." He shook his head, scanning the crowd again. No one was looking in their direction except for occasional glances from Guardians. They were identifiable by their full armor with the red and white markings, stationed throughout the port to keep the peace, provide directions to harried newcomers and make sure the many younglings running around stayed safe. “I think he’s alone.”</p><p> </p><p>“He’s a foundling then!” Jyn beamed, her single plait jumped against her back as she bounced on her toes. “We get to do his Welcoming, my first one!"</p><p> </p><p>Jacen rolled his eyes, but smiled fondly at the younger girl.</p><p> </p><p>"Alright then, lets go."</p><p> </p><p>Jyn had been shadowing older Vode for months on their Welcoming tours, and it showed. She hit all the high points of Vode's history, from their role in fighting and ending the Clone Wars and establishing Home thereafter, to the most prominent figure in Home's history, the first Vod'alor <em>Kote</em>. She even gave a brief aside about the Jedi temple on Home (obviously Padawan Ezra had been one of Jyn's tour guide mentors) and made a point to define any <em>Jorhaa'vode</em> words she used, though it wasn’t clear whether or not the child could understand her at all, Basic or not.</p><p> </p><p>Jacen couldn’t find it in himself to quell her childish enthusiasm, so he let her ramble even when she got off topic, and walked a few steps behind her and the tiny green child, who was taking in its surroundings with wide eyes that rarely blinked and huge ears that raised and lowered intermittently.</p><p> </p><p>They'd been walking for a while, Jyn pointing out structures and shops along the way as she picked a purposeful but meandering course toward the center of the town that was built alongside the main spaceport. The shops and restaurants were small, connected by cobbled streets and alleyways with homes and hostels squished in between or dropped purposefully on top. A lot of Concord Dawn was like that, at least in the centers, where the old crumbling cities had just suddenly been adopted one day, their cause taken up by hands that were more accustomed to destruction than creation. One day there had been nothing, and the next the planet had a population of millions, and the architecture told the story of old and new finding a delicate harmony that continued down to this very day. The buildings closest to the port were a little haphazard, built for function more than form. Further in town, toward the center, things got smoother, more refined, as the Vode learned they had time to learn, time to perfect and they realized beauty was something they enjoyed.</p><p> </p><p>Jyn eventually lead them to a massive open space, a circular plaza surrounded on all sides by buildings. The ground was maid of red and grey brick that had been laid in the ground in a reimagining of the old Jedi crest, surrounded by the Republic cog. The plaza was crowded this time of day, with people milling about, talking and shopping and eating. Jason smiled. He loved it here. <em>The Force</em> loved it here.</p><p> </p><p>So many beings in one place, so full of hope and excitement, the joy of new beginnings.</p><p> </p><p>It was easy to tell Vode from visitors. The Vode were a rioutous mixture of colors and races, many of the natives were half human with a predisposition toward dark hair and eyes. Those not from Home tended to wear traveler's clothes or the garments native to their home planet. Vode almost always wore armor. Some wore just a couple pieces, some wore it head to toe. It was always painted in the colors of their clan, derived from the old GAR Companies the clans were based on, or, if they were Shiny or hadn’t yet been recognized, they might not wear any paint at all. Some wore paint of all one color except a single bracer or thigh plate that was painted different, the colors of their courting partner. Others wore paint from two or more clans entwined on all their pieces. <em>After Oya Vode,</em> his father had explained, <em>when the First Generation settled down, riduurok's started popping up all over the planet, and companies were joined in ways that hadn't been possible before.</em> Jacen had sometimes heard some of the older Vode jokingly call the Littles 'rainbow troopers', saying before long there wouldn’t be any clan colors on Home anymore, just splashes of paint shared between everyone.</p><p> </p><p>Jacen thought there was something beautiful about that, and the Force seemed to hum it’s agreement.</p><p> </p><p>"And this, little one, is Vode. It’s where we come from.” Jyn's voice grew quiet, reverent. Every being on Home, Little or big, understood the importance of the Monument of Vode. Their combined community remembrance of all the brothers that came before, who paved a path to the way of life they now enjoyed.</p><p> </p><p>The monument was a ten meter tall behemoth of stone, carved into the shape of a clone trooper helmet, Phase one, his father had informed him. On either side of the helmet stood two huge carvings of lightsabers and at night a floodlight was activated inside them that shot into the sky, forming an ‘x’ over the top of the helmet that could be seen for miles.</p><p> </p><p>A warning and reminder to all who came to Home. The Jedi and Vode were entwined, they were strong and they stood together.</p><p> </p><p>All over the stone monument of the clone helmet, there were names carved. Thousands upon thousands of names. Some were words or names Jacen recognized, basic and Mando'a, some were other languages, others were just numbers. There were so many they overflowed into the fountain surrounding the monument, rippling beneath the water.</p><p> </p><p><em>The names of the Vode who were lost in the war,</em> Jason's father had explained one early morning when they were meditating in the plaza while it was still deserted. <em>So they are never forgotten, and they remain eternal.</em></p><p> </p><p>Jacen had followed his father’s eyes to one name, the name they always settled on then they came here. Jacen didn’t have any specific memories of Stance, but his father spoke of him often. Sometimes he would press his hands over the name, trace the letters with his finger and breathe in the <em>love</em> and <em>longing</em> that had been infused into the carving by his father and other brothers over the years. And Jacen would murmur under his breath, wishing against wish he’d been born just little bit earlier.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ni partayli, gar darasuum.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>This was the one thing, Jacen knew, that was just for Clones. No Jedi names were inscribed on the monument. No Recognized natborns. There were other memorials for them on Home, places where families could be remembered together if they chose. Here, at the Monument of Vode, this was for Clones. Someday Jason's friends Soren and Brii'kase would get to have their names carved in the monument. They were some of the last of the Clones around, they hadn’t even been decanted yet when Oya Vode rocked the galaxy all those years ago.</p><p> </p><p>Jacen was a little jealous of his brothers for that, getting to look forward to this at the end, but he understood it too. And a much larger part of him was happy for them. That the Clones got to have something that was just <em>theirs</em>.</p><p> </p><p><em>The Vode saved the galaxy, my son. They can have this, at least.</em> </p><p> </p><p>Jacen’s father said the Jedi and the Vode had at one time been separate, but the Order changed after the war. The Jedi still existed. Jedi like Jacen's father Caleb (<em>Master</em> Caleb now that he’d taken on Ezra as a Padawan), and Master Leia, who were trained in the Force, who trained others, but lead lives with families and jobs outside the Order. And there were those who dedicated themselves to the Force and lived at the Temple, like old Master Plo. But most Jedi were like Jacen himself. Aware of the Force, trained to use a lightsaber. But most of the time, he just ran around with his brothers and tried not to get caught downloading instructions to build Bouncy Bombs off the holonet.</p><p> </p><p>Because Jacen was a Jedi, but he was also Vode. And that meant he got to have a little bit of everything.</p><p> </p><p>Jyn appeared to have finally decided her tour was over had put the child on the ground. Jacen came to stand beside her and they both watched curiously as the child walked forward to the base of the sculpture over one of the small bridges that spanned the water. Slowly it raised a clawed green hand and pressed it to the stone, its ears lowered and eyes closed.</p><p> </p><p>"Ah, he is very powerful indeed."</p><p> </p><p>Jacen looked up into the smiling blue eyes ofMaster Luke. He bowed quickly.</p><p> </p><p>"He, Master?”</p><p> </p><p>The older Jedi tilted his head and stroked his grey beard with one hand.</p><p> </p><p>“I…think so."</p><p> </p><p>"He's a Jedi?" Jyn turned to Jason and wrinkled her nose in a frown. "Why didn’t you tell me!"</p><p> </p><p>Jason reached out to tug her messy plait. “<em>You</em> didn’t let me get a word in edgewise."</p><p> </p><p>Jyn rolled her eyes and all three looked down to where the child had rejoined them, staring up with those giant, watchful eyes.</p><p> </p><p>"Jyn?" Master Luke prompted, "aren’t you going to finish Welcoming our new foundling?"</p><p> </p><p>The little girl's eyes went wide.</p><p> </p><p>"Oh! Yes, of course!"</p><p> </p><p>Jyn dropped to her knees, startling the little green child, but he rallied quickly. Jyn smiled apologetically and reached out, gently taking his tiny claws in her hands.</p><p> </p><p>She bent forward until their foreheads touched and closed her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>Jason's gaze went to the inscription carved at the base of the Monument and followed along as she recited the words by heart.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Remove your armor if you are friend</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Rest in safety among your brothers</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Meet us on the field of battle if you are foe</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We fight with honor and die without fear</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We are loyal to our Vode</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We stand behind the Vod'alor</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We remember those that marched ahead</em>
</p><p>
  <em>So that they may be eternal</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Today you need search no longer</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Today you have come Home</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Aliit ori'shya taldin</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Jyn opened her eyes and leaned back with a grin.</p><p> </p><p>"Welcome Home little brother."</p><p> </p><p>And all around them, the Force <em>sang</em>.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775">Soft Wars Series</a>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Mando'a:</p><p>Vode - brothers, in this case refers to inhabitants and culture established their home and culture on Home (Concord Dawn)<br/>Vod’alor - brother leader, established in Soft Wars canon<br/>Jorhaa'vode - author derived, the name of the dialect of Mando'a spoken on Home, a mixture of Mando'a, Concordian and Basic, etc.<br/>riduurok - marriage vow<br/>ni partayli, gar darasuum - I remember you, you are eternal - a portion of the Mandalorian remembrance saying<br/>Aliit ori'shya tal'din - family is more than blood</p></blockquote></div></div>
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